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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Growing Sprouted Onions

I'm quite perplexed.

I was talking to a friend the other day about growing onions. For a few years now (I think this is the third year), I've grown onions in my container garden from already sprouted onions. You know...the ones you buy and then forget about until one day there's something green growing in your pantry? On more than one occasion I've actually eaten the sprouted onion, preserving the growing parts (sprout and roots) and then planted it and grown it again, essentially eating the same onion twice. So, I was telling my friend how to grow sprouted onions because I've found it quite easy (and also fairly simple) to do, when I thought, Hey, I should write a tutorial!

I took a bunch of photographs of the process, and then out of curiosity, I did an internet search for growing sprouted onions, to see if I could learn anything else about how other people do this. Here's where the perplexing part comes in: almost all (I'd say approximately 95%) of the question and answer pages I found said that: 1. You cannot eat onions that have sprouted; they are rotten, and 2. If you plant a sprouted onion, it will produce flowers (which you can then harvest for seeds to plant next year) but it will not produce an onion bulb that you can eat.

I took a photo of last year's onion plants, and I even have a photograph of one of them post-harvest in my beef stew recipe. What I'm sayin' is, I know it works, and I'm very curious to know why it's working for me and not for so many other people. (I'm not that great with plants, so that can't be it.) Maybe it's about the climate? Or the type of onion I used?

Well, I've never tried this process with red onions before, so this will be quite the experiment (now that I know this has been working for me against great odds).

Here's what I do, in case you want to try your hand at it, too:

Buy some onions and let them sprout in your pantry or a drawer...wherever, really. I actually bought these on sale, pre-sprouted from the farmer's market.

Peel the outer papery layers, like you would if you were going to chop the onion, taking care to preserve any roots that might be growing between layers:

Cut into the onion, nearly to the center, trying to avoid the sprouting center portion:

Remove the rest of that half of the onion, exposing the center:

Carefully cut around the base, removing the rest of the second half of the bulb, until you just have the center left:

You can eat the portion that you removed, as long as it hasn't gotten mushy. (My husband ate some of this one raw and said it was delicious and sweet.) You might want to discard any parts that have started to get kind of "leafy" (like the dark purple tops of the center of this onion).

Take your sprouted onion center(s) and plant them in soil, with the white roots down and the green part sticking up. (I'm not saying this to be a jerk—I think bulbs are confusing.)

Water them, give them sun, and watch them grow! I usually pull mine up when the green parts have dried out at the end of the season, but you can pull them up any time after you see the onion bulb starting to stick up above the soil.

You can also eat the green shoots (these are called Spring onions or scallions) though I have never done that with mine.

I've also done it without preserving the sprouted (green) portion and just planting the root part which has started to grow. Just cut off the bulb and plant the roots (sticking down) and water it.

I'm very curious to know, have you ever grown onions from sprouted ones? Did you have the same results that I have had, or did your onion grow flowers? Do you have any gardening insights as to why I've gotten so lucky with onions in the past? I can't wait to hear!

143 comments:

Must be the professional onion grower guild trying to discourage competition. And thanks for the tutorial! Curious if a rooting-in-water stage would work since I'm hoping to do this for my daughter's class, and being able to see what's going on would be great. Putting them later (or immediately) in soil (or clear gel) in a clear glass bowl would also allow root growth to eventually be seen...

I planted one sprouted onion in a container that was about 14 inches deep and about 6 inches wide, as an experiment one spring. I did not peel or cut the outer layers, simply planted the bulb with the green sprouts sticking out of the soil. Lots of sun, and water only occasionally when soil was dry to touch. Come summer it had turned itself into 3 smaller onions. I cured them after harvesting and used them as I would any old store bought onion. They tasted super fresh and yummy! I'm trying this again in the garden this year to see if wide open space will produce larger onions. Either way, sprouted onions are super easy to grow in containers if you want a smaller harvest! Also, a fun little activity for kiddos 😊

We did this with store bought green onions bc I read somewhere they would turn into onions. Some of them did. I think it depends on how well they are watered (or under 4" or wood chips so they are damp); and how long you leave them in there. We put them in in the fall with the garlic to protect our brassica crops and we had a terrible winter with tons of snow and lots of rain in Spring. By July in 104 heat they were ready. There were 2 onions of 6. This was my first time with no real help on any of this except what I read. So thank you very much.

We did this with store bought green onions bc I read somewhere they would turn into onions. Some of them did. I think it depends on how well they are watered (or under 4" or wood chips so they are damp); and how long you leave them in there. We put them in in the fall with the garlic to protect our brassica crops and we had a terrible winter with tons of snow and lots of rain in Spring. By July in 104 heat they were ready. There were 2 onions of 6. This was my first time with no real help on any of this except what I read. So thank you very much.

I represent the National Onion Growers Board. On behalf of my client, I hereby demand that you immediately cease and desist from further dissemination of this valuable onion-growing Trade Secret information. This information is of critical sensitivity to my client, and it’s dissemination could result in significant financial injury, especially in the lucrative packaged salad and French onion soup industries. We reserve all legal rights with respect to the entire onion family, including chives, leeks and those weird purple titty-shaped onions that you never know quite what to do with. If you have any questions, please contact the undersigned, Reginald Snidely III, Esq.

Wow.I'm inspired by what you dd.I tried planting the bulb with sprout thrice but it didn't produce bulb afterwards.Good thing,I found your blog and learned from it.I will follow what you did.I hope it works this time.

Wow.I'm inspired by what you dd.I tried planting the bulb with sprout thrice but it didn't produce bulb afterwards.Good thing,I found your blog and learned from it.I will follow what you did.I hope it works this time.

Thanks for the photo explanations. I think the replies that contradict this on other pages are written by shamsters trying to dissuade others. Now I can deal with that 4" sprout baby sitting on my counter... (white onion)

You can grow onions this way that have not sprouted as well. Just break down the onion to the center as you have here, except cut the top off, and make your way down the core/cores there will always be a tiny sprout an inch or so long. Try to get part of the woody section below the little sprout, or some roots themselves, and that will root more easily, but you can even plant the sprout if you accidentally break it off the whole root system entirely with some luck. Now eat your onion, and plant several more!

So good to know. Too bad I didn't read this sooner, though. I have been throwing the tiny green stem-like sprout that I've been finding in my onions, all week! :( I only thought to grow onions because two, out of the bunch, sprouted way out of control. Thanks again for sharing!

Garlic is really simple to grow, just break the bulb apart and plant the cloves individually, but make sure to leave the papery outside on otherwise they'll rot. Just keep in mind that most grocery-store garlic is treated so that they won't grow, so you'll want to buy it from a farmer's market or the like. I usually plant mine in the spring and harvest mid-late summer, and then do a second crop indoors (I live in the US Pacific coast zone). Garlic grows very nicely in containers but they are very attractive to aphids, so plant some kind of deterrent plant close to it (I use Nasturtiums, which are also an edible plant :D)

About a week ago I stuck a little purple pearl onion that had sprouted to about 2 inches into soil. This onion had no roots yet and I plopped it in the dirt whole (no cuts).

The sprouts burned by day two in direct sun, so I figured I might as well see what happened if I took it to shade. I replanted in a box that drains well and left it where it gets direct sunlight for only a few hours a day. A week later the sprouts have tripled and are a foot tall.

When the green shoots start to wither and/or the onion is largely visible above the surface of the soil, it is ready to be pulled up. (You can always pull them up earlier than that if you want to use them sooner, they'll just be smaller.) Also, try not to let your onion grow flowers (cut off flowering shoots) if you're hoping to be able to grow a bulb to eat.

I'm glad I found this post! I grew red and white onions last year, and hung them all in my pantry to dry. Nearly all the red ones have sprouted and I have just been planting them. Didn't think to cut off the good parts to eat, but I will next time. I read the same things you did about not being able to grow onions from a sprouted onion, so we'll see.

Amy: A trick with Tomatoes, they will self sow in warm soil, but if you do not have a long growing season you will not get as much fruit. It is best to start the plants indoors early, January/late February, in a sunny location. When you transplant them, take off the bottom leaves and leave at the minimum 5 at the top and plant the plant up to the first set of leaves you leave on. In that way they get a good root system. You can lay the stem on it's side if you have a really tall plant. Just remember to lay it in such a way the top leaves stand up straight when you cover them with good soil. Soil is really important for any plant. Keep them moist until they are established. Plenty of sun, as sun makes them ripen sooner. Put your stake in at that time. Do not plant them in the same soil as the previous year or where potatoes where planted the year before, due to the possibility of disease. Plant Basil nearby to bring out the flavor as a companion plant. I like heirlooms such as Heinz, Bloody Butcher, Box Car WIllie, Abe Lincoln, Black Krim, Black Cherry, Amish Paste, Purple Tomatillo, for preserving and eating fresh.

We have a greenhouse and this year I cut off he top branches of two plants and put them in the bucket, It's mid December and they are still alive... although I am not getting fruit off of them, just blooms, they are large enough if they live, that I will get a lot of fruit off of them very early after they are transplanted. We shall see, this is my first time trying that....

So it's January in the Northwest. There is some snow outside (not much, but it's 35 degrees in the middle of the day). I just came back from vacation in a warmer place to 2 sprouted red onions on my kitchen counter. Can I do this cut-the-edible-part-away thing and plant these in pots?

I also live in the Northwest. I'm not sure if this would work this time of year, but I think it's definitely worth a shot! Maybe you could keep them in pots in the warm kitchen (but near a light source) until it's warm enough to put them outside. Good luck! Let me know how it turns out. =)

Thanks for the tips! I told my husband that if it grows sprouts or roots, it is plantable. I asked him about the chicken and the egg too. Farm boys, I swear. lol. I'm glad you mentioned the scallions though as I was wanting to grow some.

Can you tell me how long it takes from the time you plant the spouted onion until the onion is ready to harvest? Is there any particular time frame that the sprouted onion needs to be planted? I had also done an internet search, and the only place I found that even said that this was possible said that it took 3 months and that there were only certain times you could plant them--but it did not tell when these times were.

I finally figured it out. Other people just plant the onion without cutting it, the way onions grow, it is not likely that baby onions will grow from it. But you cut out just the bulb portion, so only one onion is growing from your bulb. It all makes sense now.

I am Manikant from New Delhi, India. I have a small backyard kitchen garden. I tried to grow onion many times, but I was totally unfortunate. I tried the seeds as well bulb. May be somewhere I am still going wrong. If anybody can explain in detail I would be obliged. Amy growing tomatoes are not tricky in India at all. We just spread the seed and it grows. But yes, need to prepare the soil beforehand. Soil should have enough moisture.

Mr. Chowdary you should write an Indian gardening journal ! I know I, and I bet MANY others, would LOVE to hear the gardening stories from such a different place as Toronto! Your weather must allow for some amazing ways of doing things, and I understand tea grows all over the place in India?? Oh man would I love to go to your country!

im glad to find this post... one day while cleaning out my pantry i found an onion thst had been forgotten...had fallen into a crevice and began to sprout.....it had been sprouting for a long time im guessing caus the onion part was soft and wilted and the green part was huge and there were several sticking out,,,i have never grown anything but i thought ...for fun ..im gonna plant this...i took it in the yard.. dug a hole..stuck it in with green sticking out...poured some water on it.........then forgot lol.....was cutting my grass yesterday when i saw a huge thick green thing with some white tiny flowers on top and was going to mow it like a weed till my husband said......isnt that your onion...i said my what? lol i think i did it in april maybe it was march...dont know for sure... my question now is ...how will i know if its done and what do i do now lol...i really diddnt expect it to grow...

I have just read your post and I am from Cairns, Australia. I had a spouted red onion in my kitchen and I have always just planted them whole, but this time I took your advice and pl$anted it in sections. I got 6 separate onion spouts. can't wait to see the result!ThanksMargot

Just tried it, will let you know if it works for me. My 7 year old son and I have been working on planting different food parts the past few weeks. So far we have planted 2 pineapple tops...want to try avocado and potato next.

Avocado is very tempermental. My mom and I have been trying to grow them since I was a little kid and Im 26 now. Only over the past few years did we get two to grow and even once they started to have a stem and leaves they are still very tricky. The dont like alkaline soil and though I have read the like lots of sun my always withers in direct sunlight. They also do best in a constant warm climate. Depending on growing conditions it can take years for a plant to reach maturity and fruit. Some avocado plants will never produce fruit according to google. Best of luck to you and your son!

Try sprouting your avocado pit first; put four toothpicks into it and balance it over the top of a glass, bowl or jar full of water. Pit should be submerged about halfway. Place on a windowsill or other sunny place and wait. We have grown two massive avocado trees this way; over six feet tall!

I am from So. Calif (now living in NW). My mom and I always grew "trees" from avocado seeds and planted them (not all survived), but didn't get fruit from them, just lovely shade trees. A neighbor (who had 2 producing trees) told me that there needed to be fruiting avocado trees in CLOSE proximity (like next door) in order for a tree started from seed to produce fruit. It also takes several years (8, I think he said) for them to start producing. In the meantime, we just enjoyed the shade trees! Start sprouting in a glass of water, with toothpicks holding it up, as was said.

My mother has grown onions this way. I recently found four sprouting onions in my pantry and am going to attempt it myself :) I don't understand why it should/would be impossible to do... Unless it has something to do with modern onions' engineering or something?

Thanks for sharing this-- I'm Googling to find out if I can plant the onion that's sprouted on my counter, and I'm finding much the same as you describe-- many people say it can't be done. I was pretty sure it could, so I'm really glad to find your post to confirm that! :) My kids and I will be planting our "new" onion plant this evening!

So far I have planted and killed two onions... they seemed healthy and grew at first but didn't make it beyond a month. I may be watering too heavily, I suppose. I will keep trying! Thanks for the post.

I tried growing a sweet onion last year and ended up with a lovely flowering plant. I'm going to take the plunge and plant the red onion that's sprouted in my kitchen. Maybe I'll be more successful in my attempt to get a real onion by following your lead. I sort of hate planting it because it's making my kitchen smell like onion all the time.

We had an onion growing in the corner of our compost pile this year! I'm not real sure where it came from. I always cut the top and bottoms of my onions before slicing and I know I have cut a few that had already begun sprouting. I also through out one whole onion that had rotted too far through to simply peel off layers. (We don't have that happen very often since we tend to go through onions quickly.) The kids and I were excited and a bit too impatient so we pulled it up to check it out before properly researching. :-) The bulb is small but other than that it seems perfect. Now we're going to 'accidentally' let some sprout and plant them in our experimental garden. (Experimental because we plant random things in sometimes random places and just see what happens.)

I am SO glad I found this post! For years now I have been convinced that it's logical that I could grow a sprouted onion and time and time again everything I read says I cannot. A couple thoughts and questions: First of all, nothing I have ever read explains to peel away the meat of the onion and plant ONLY the very-center from sprout to root the way you did. So THAT may be why they're rotting on people; they're either planting the entire onion (and so it rots) or they're cutting the top of at the sprout and planting that (no roots)! I was tickled pink just now peeling away my sprouted onion to get to the center and shaking my head at how I missed that simple logic before.

I am curious about a couple things: Mine (and seemingly yours in the pics) seem to have a two-part center. It looks as though if you break it in half you'd easily have two plants; hence, two onions, since the sprouts appear to be mostly separate. I didn't dare do this, so I planted the two together, but can you split it?

Also, and this will REALLY show how garden-dumb I am; Will each of these planted sprouts (not split as I just mentioned but the way you describe) produce ONE onion? I've never grown onions before and would like to grow as many as possible. I guess what I'm asking is, does 12 sprouted onions planted equal 12 new onions (if grown successfully)?

You can cut it in half and make two i think ! I grow from onion bottoms that i start in water. I cut the bottoms into two and get 2 onions from one. Im going to try and plant a sprouted full onion and see if i get seeds that sounds neat ! What a good post and comments thanks so much ! :)

I had 4 onions sprout on my counter, so I decided to just plant them, whole, as they were. After a few weeks, I pulled one up to find TWINS! lol. So I separated them, as you would any bulb, and replanted them. Just now, about a month since, I pulled them up (I don't think they were quite ready for harvest, but we're in the NW and the weather is turning cool now, and a big storm is expected), but what I found was some very nice, tho small, onions. They are quite usable, so I set them out on my covered porch to cure, as I have read. This was my first try, and I'm glad that I now have this site to fall back on. :D Next time, I'll take them apart and plant them (indoors at first, since winter is coming). I just cut up (for dinner) a white onion that had 3 sprouting centers in it...ate the centers with the rest of the onion, and they were delicious! I've planted potato eyes before, and gotten some nice, tho small, potatoes from them, first try.

I planted two sprouted onions (whole) last year, collected the seeds when they flowered, and used the greens as scallions, but I thought the bulb was used up by making the greens, so I didn't even look for it. I just planted my first sprouted onion using your method described here today.

I'll echo Laura Jean's question, above - do you know if splitting the two-part center and planting separately will successfully yield two separate onions? Mine was also that way, but I played it safe and planted it as a single unit.

Fascinating, and so glad to read your story, I recently did as you described but then tried to look it up to find out more and was disappointed to read everywhere that it doesn't work or just produces a flower. I'm glad to see that may be wrong! I wonder if it's just a lot of misinformation out there? (sadly that's often the case.)

hi i am from india and am new to this. does each onion that we plant give more than one onion ? all the pictures i see show one onion per planted onion. what is the point then of planting one onion to get one onion only.hope my question is not too dumb. thanks . would love an answer.

Try Egyptian Walking Onions.... they are perennial and will give more than one onion bulb .... just leave a few in the ground for next year. You can do the same with garlic, leave a few for next year and the bulbs will double.

The idea is that you use the flesh of the current bulb for your dinner and plant the green sprouts only to get new bulbs. In this way, you get more bulb from your plant. It is really no different than if you allowed the plant to continue growing into a bigger onion bulb. It grows layers inside and makes a bigger bulb. This just uses the outer flesh and allows the into layers to make a new bulb. You probably could not do this three or more times from the same onion, but who knows?!?! :) Maybe you could grow it twice though.

Okay, I ended up here because I was curious about the topic. This is what I did: I stuck a sprouted red onion from my pantry in my vegetable bed back in April or so (absolutely NO preparation, didn't peel it or cut it, just stuck it in with the sprouted end up. I did water it along with the other vegetables in the bed, which were peppers and tomatoes.) And the result was that I (1) cut "green onions" from its sprouts, which grew very tall, all summer, and (2) just yesterday, August 29, all the green parts having withered and the onion bulb beginning to poke itself above the ground, I decided to pull the bulb up and to my surprise found it had turned into THREE gigantic, intact red onions! They are super dense and heavy, like little bowling balls. We are going to use one in our dinner tonight.

Talk about easy to grow. This is California (Zone 9?) where things do grow pretty readily.

I put the 'core' of a sprouted onion in the ground a couple of weeks ago, and it was apparent today that it was growing 3 separate shoots. Dug it up and separated the 3 shoots, making sure each had some of the new roots that had sprouted at the base, and then replanted the 3.

Very informative blog. I actually have grown onion from my basket as well when I over bought the supplies and forgot about it completely until I saw the green leave growing. I was thinking to myself, hey why not try to plant it see if I can grow any in an apartment unit. I came across your blog and like your write-up. I find it very easy to follow your steps. Although I might need to google more about how to grow a plant in an apartment environment. Thanks for sharing.

Excellent Article... It's mid December here, so am going to try your method in a bucket of excellent soil in my Greenhouse and see what happens. Am in zone 7. I have planted them before whole... let them go to flower for the seeds and scallions Next time I will harvest before they go to seed and see how big the bulb is. Found the bulb to be small when I let them go to seed. Makes sense... all the energy went into growing the plant and blooms.

One tip I can offer to help them not flower as easily is to plant them shallow. Onion bulbs planted deep make for better "green onions" but for big onions, plant shallow. I'm disappointed to find 3 of my sweet candy onions from the fall have sprouted, but I'm going to try dissecting them tomorrow and hope for new ones :). Thanks!

One tip I can offer to help them not flower as easily is to plant them shallow. Onion bulbs planted deep make for better "green onions" but for big onions, plant shallow. I'm disappointed to find 3 of my sweet candy onions from the fall have sprouted, but I'm going to try dissecting them tomorrow and hope for new ones :). Thanks!

Hi folks, I am from New Zealand. I did just what I have read above before finding this wonderful blog. I didn't pot my onions (7) but unceremoniously jammed them into the ground at the edge of the garden plot, by the rhubarb and forgot about them. That was probably because the leaves of the rhubarb took off and covered the evidence. Yesterday I thought what is that lurking there, when weeding. Yes they have all grown but wait there is 30 odd tops not 7 so guess there are a lot of multiplying heads lurking under the soil. I want to dig and see what I have got but I promise I will be patient So to all you folks thinking of doing something like this, just do it dont think. You will loose more by not trying, and will always wonder would it have worked.

Wow, that's awesome! Thanks for this! I knew you could grow new onions from the old roots but I've never tried it with an already sprouted one before. I'm gonna give it a try with an onion that started growing in my fridge o.0 It's worth trying at any rate ^^

As thanks a golden nugget here: there are some other produces that can be regrown such as garlic, celery, green onions, pineapple, ginger, and potatoes. For the celery and green onions you leave about an 1''-2'' above the root and just replant it. For pineapple it's the crown you need, after scooping out the fruit you need to do a few cuts to expose the root buds; after cutting let it dry for a few days to heal and then plant it in a sunny spot (I've never tried a pineapple personally though, a friend did but it took a couple of years before he got fruit). For ginger soak it overnight, then cut it into pieces with a couple of growth buds on each piece and then plant it with the buds facing up/sideways, to harvest just dig up a piece and cut off what you need then replant it again. (I haven't had to buy ginger or garlic in years :D). For those old forgotten/wrinkly potatoes you can cut them up into approximately 1 inch chunks with a couple of eyes on each piece, let them dry out for a day or two to skin over, then plant them with the eye facing up. ^^

This is awesome, food pantry gave us 3 bags of onions and a good chunk of them were starting to sprout, now my daughter doesn't want me to "kill" them. So I might do this with her and freeze the eating part and we can plant the sprouted part!

I had the same thing happening with a few onions (only shoots no roots ) so I gave it a try (my first try for ever growing onions ) and found the roots growing after a few . It worked with a whole onion (no peeling) not sure about the result-some seed and flower or some new onions ?

Okay, if you let the onion sprout some MORE before you plant it out, you may have 4 sprouts in the onion (like I did). You carefully remove the edible layers and when you get to the sprouted parts, take them apart and plant separately. You will get more onions that way. Good luck!

Any comments on how deep the dirt needs to be? Shallow or deep? I don't want to crowd them, but can they be close together? I have two sprouting yellow onions from the grocery right now and want to give it a go. And can anyone give advice on garlic? I see that each clove should be planted separately, but will grocery store heads give you anything? I've had a few sprout at home. thanks in advance

I live in London, England. I have been getting into growing stuff because of this great summer we've been having in the South East of England. I have just planted 3 slightly shooting onions, after reading your website posts. Am I mad?

I have just dug up 2 onions that i stuck in the ground when they sprouted.I did nothing special to them just stuck them in the ground.I now have lots of lovely red onions.About 6 onions from each sprouted onion i planted.Easy as pie.Will do that again.

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Hey, what a great article - I love the way you write : > I did the same thing - I found a red onion, which I loove in Macaroni Salad, at the back of the fridge, pretty much all packed and ready to move out on his own, anyway, (had grown sprouts - lol!), so I just made a hole in a container on the balcony, popped him in there, and now the green 'leaves' are up at least a foot - so i was googling whether they were edible, since that would be fun to just go and cut them, for soup, and what not, right? And, my theory is, they would just keep renewing themselves. and while I was out there, I poked a bunch more holes in the conatiners, planted green beans and yellow beans - and have planted potatoes, as well, and they make very pretty vines, if you want to add that to any garden, even a container garden - and the kids like to grow potatoes inside in the winter - is fun for everyone to watch something grow so quickly. Thanks, again! Ailsa : >http://buildyourownhousebodylife.blogspot.com

We had a half onion in fridge that sprouted, and my grand-daughter planted it outside (early Feb in the Rockies- we actually had a MILD winter!)- It hs taken off and now has a flower shoot_not opened yet- She wants to know if we cut the flower shoot off, if we'll get an onion- The plant is about 24" high and huge. Are the seeds in the flower pod, even though it is not open yet, able to grow? Thanks!

This onion ended up having the shoot ripped off in high winds- we salvaged the seed by putting the shoot into a glass of water until it bloomed. The onion, at season end, had grown to be a full onion. Very pleasant finding!And tasty, too!

I do this every time I find one. Generally the sprouts inside the onion can be carefully split into two or three onions (they'll show signs of this if you look, you'll see several bulbs). I've got over 350 onions going right now on my farm and a good amount are done like this from last years stock. It works and works well. They grow well with garlic and mint as these will help keep the bugs off each other.

I most definitely have grown onions this way, potatoes as well! If you pot some lettuce you can keep trimming leaves to make sure the plant grows all season long as well! It is really awesome for those "not so green thumb" kind of people, like myself. :)

I too only found negative articles about the "impossibility" of growing an onion this way. I am very thankful u posted this. I just took an opinion that I had been growing on my counter for a month now. It had 11" greens and 1-1.5" roots. I cut the onion down just like you showed. I felt daring and spit one of the bulbs off to itself. I also was not sure what to do with the greens, two I chopped the greens off and one I didn't. I planted it in a good planter of potting soil. Question? Do u only water or do you add fertilizer? The temp is still cooler here so I hope I didn't plant too early! About how many days does it take to form an onion? Thank you!

I'm so excited that you posted these instructions with the photos. I went to another blog and they said it couldn't be done and with roots and sprouts I thought that can't be right, so I kept looking and stumbled upon your blog, I'm going try it. I live in Maine. Thank you again!!

I planned my sprouted onion before I read that "it can't be done". My research started after it produced a bloom. I waited until it flowered and cut it off to save the seeds. I'll let you know how it goes. I think it's just amazing what's possible when you don't know it's impossible.

I tried this out with a red onion that I'd forgotten about and ended up sprouting. I planted it back in March and today it has 18-inch shoots! It's huge! I don't even really care about the onion portion, I mainly wanted to see if I could get it to grow. It really thrived in a semi-sunny spot where I planted it. Every now and then I'll cut off a shoot and chew on it - it's very strong and tangy. I imagine, being a bulb, it will sprout every year?

OK, this is going to sound weird. I had an onion that I thought was bad so I tossed it on top of my compost pile outside and thought I would deal with it later. When I came back to it next week it had taken root and I just kinda left it to see what would happen. Now I have greens flowing over the side of my balcony, any idea what I should do with it?

I stuck a whole red starting to sprout onion in a glass of water in window. That was in early December. It now haas about 8 green thick shoots 8-9 inches tall. I cut one to use as green onions the other day. Not much taste. It is past outdoor growing season here in the mountains of So Cal. What can I do with the onion sprouts. Will they continue to grow as I cut them in the water? Onion still with skin and whole.

I just whopp off the growing bit, usually a third of the onion, plop it in a pot, water it, and get seeds for next year. I use the other part for whatever it is I needed to onion for in the first place. I never knew I was supposed to be planting the hairy end. How weird.

It's been like 5 years since his article was first posted and people have been replying all that time or asking questions. I'm about to give this a try myself, hopefully I'll have some good results that I can post your later. Thanks again for your post!DD

Now that my from-onion-cores are getting bigger, I think I understand the controversy. A whole sprouting onion has 3 or 4 different new onions in its core, and if you plant the whole thing all in one piece, they will crowd each other and none will grow full size, and maybe hardly at all. So the "can't plant a sprouting onion" line is technically correct.

BUT, if you cut away the shared outer layers (for eating if not yet rotten), you'll get to the individual new stalks, which if fully separated, will each happily make a new bulb.

When in doubt - cut them apart, carefully. I've got what turned out to be couple doubletons, and instead of making a back to back pair of "D"s, it seems the crowding/pressure where they meet is preventing new layers from growing or forming in the first place - the singletons appear much bigger overall than the doubletons.

Also, don't be too afraid of losing some roots; they'll regrow. Probably don't have to worry about cutting the core a bit; it'll heal and/or scar and keep going.

Other sites suggest trimming to force growing energy into bulbs instead of flowers and greens: trim the top 3" from 9" stalks (use the trimmings as scallions) to make them 6", then again from 12" down to 9, then from maybe 15 down to 12.Unless you want the flowers and seeds. I should have left a couple untrimmed to see if THAT conventional wisdom was correct.

Dear OP,Try to be polite next time. People come here for information from people who've actually learned from experience. That's how I found this site, it was because someone had done something I hoped to do, and I'm sharing results to try to help someone like me. Sorry if that got your panties in a bunch.

Dearest Brad,I WAS being polite! I,too, found the site regarding regrowing onion from a cut onion, and had grown an entirely new onion, allowed it to go to seed, and grew even more from those. I was amazed that you had gone to such lengths to discover why onions manage to do so;that's all. Anyone who takes such pains to work out the logic of why Mother Nature is so intent on reproducing may possibly know the answer to the old 'nonsense joke' of the 'what's the difference between a duck' question...(the conversation goes something like:"A duck and what?""Don't change the subject.Just answer the question""The question doesn't make sense!""Of course it does. What's the difference between a duck?""I don't have any idea...""The difference between a duck is...One leg is both the same as the other!"This is a prime example of the nonsense jokes that were popular in between the 1920's to 1940's. People spent incredible amounts of time attempting to figure out the logic of them, even though they were designed to not have any logic to them whatsoever.My point is that Mother Nature does not run by logic- she just runs. She propagates because she can. I once had a plant that repeated got dug out and chewed to bits by this ruthless pup. I kept sticking the poor mangled thing back in the ground, and many, many months later (after being criticized repeatedly by others for watering a 'dead stub'), it re-sprouted and grew yet again.Cutting an onion in half, forgetting it in the frig, and plunking it half dead into the garden produced a whole onion, and tons of new seed, which, in turn produced many fine onions.Never say never to Mother Nature; she'll always surprise you. So, my dear, I already have learned from experience (and not only about onions), and I certainly don't have my "panties in a bunch" :)I've cut onions in half, both length-wise, and width-wise;both managed to grow into new onions. I've also separated them into more than one section vertically, and grown new onions from those sections.Interesting bit about the trimming of the greens promoting them to grow bigger- kind of like haircuts.Planting by the dark of the moon(from full to new)also is beneficial for root crops;planting from new to full best for above ground crops.I only wrote the duck thing because you seemed so determined to find a logical cause to Mother Nature's gift of producing 'against all odds'... no need to feel personally attacked by a bit of non-logical humor,dear. I didn't trim any greens, and the onions did just fine. In fact, they grew larger than the original onion from which the cut piece was planted from. Cheers!

I'm familiar with the joke, though not the craze. A close friend says "ok" Is the only abbreviation to survive a similar craze from about the 1840s ("oll korrect").

I've also read a lot about evolution, and my wife is teaching a human evolution course to non-science majors this summer, so I've learned intriguing specifics to genus homo.

Yes, life generally works, SOMEhow. But not always and not in all conditions; "optimal" organisms actually usually doesn't survive outside their comfort zone, the small generalists do. Take dinosaurs: basal dinosaurs showed a handful of simple but revolutionary body plan changes that led them to utterly dominate small, large, and mega land fauna (not micro) for over a hundred million years, yet only the birds survived the KT extinction. Earlier, life was hit harder at the end of the Permian. Yes, mammals survived with the dinosaurs - without any hope of today's dominance until the dinos were basically gone.

Domesticated plants and animals are VERY heavily artificially selected, usually for rapid growth among other things, and have genetics that are economically viable only when either true-breeding or requires hybrids of true breeding strains. And these creatures generally need well-managed farming to survive.

So, yes, a grocery-store onion will survive and reproduce if dropped on the ground, but we shouldn't expect it to directly make a small bag's worth of onions without human intervention. Horses and dogs and housecats occasionally thrive when gone feral, but I'd be surprised if sheep would survive anywhere. Then again, I was about to use chickens as another counter example, but the island of Kauai is overrun with them. Or at least the human habitated parts with manicured lawns. The locals say they don't taste good and may be loaded with toxins, so they have very few predators.

As for trimming onion greens, that's simple energetics - yes, a bit less sugar from the sun, but none wasted on flowers and too-long greens, more put into bulb growth.

I'm glad I came across this article. All the other sites on growing onions are about planting seeds or commercial bulbs. Here's why I'm interested: One day (not sure exactly when) I was cleaning out my pantry and noticed I had several potatoes beyond the point of no return and one onion starting to sprout. I grabbed them all and threw them in an empty pot on my potting table on my back porch, in hopes of planting in the coming days. Well, due to health problems and bad weather (months of rain and snow), I forgot about planting them and figured I would just throw the whole pot out at some point. Then one day in April I looked out the window and saw the green sprouts from the onion popping out above the rim of the pot. I thought "how could this be", there was no soil in the pot just rotten potatoes. The pot had been drenched in rain, covered in snow, and exposed to temperatures as low as single digits. There's no way that thing should be growing. It still didn't get actual soil until recently and by waiting it did go to flowering, but I didn't know what to do next. So now I have an idea of what to do next time an onion sprouts and I can use the seeds to try to start some new plants. I would love any advice on planting onion seeds you could give me. I haven't had much luck with growing things in my area, because of temperature extremes. Thanks.

Hello, one of my yellow onions sprouted so I planted it and let it flower and go to seed. It eventually dried up and I took the old stem off. Well my husband planted some grass seed and watered, and up pops new greem onion sprouts. Will it get a new bulb? Do I eat the greens? Thanks for the help!

I have planted five sprouted yellow onions the only preparation I did was to cut off the green. I put the whole onion in potting soil and they now have about 12” of thriving green sprouts above. How do I know when to pull them up? I’m doing this in my sunroom which I keep at about 62 degrees.